


Presentation

by sylvancat



Category: Leverage
Genre: Gen, One-Shot, episode coda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-08
Updated: 2012-12-08
Packaged: 2017-11-20 14:38:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/586464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sylvancat/pseuds/sylvancat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eliot cooks comfort food.  (because Sophie's little revulsion subplot in The Tapout Job made me laugh, and grumpy Eliot is tasty:)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Presentation

**Author's Note:**

> **For my unfinished Leverage Bingo the prompt; McRory's Bar  
> **  
>  Thanks to justruth for the beta, and nudges disguised as culinary updates;)

If you ask Sophie, she’ll tell you modestly she’s something of a gourmet. 

She's got a decent palate, knows from wine and chocolate, knows the right noises to make at all the right restaurants. When Hardison needs to sound like he knows about wine, Sophie steps in as coach, reels off all the right terms in binary choices for the hacker over the coms. Following Sophie’s lead Hardison comes up with fruity _and_ dry to describe the fraternity’s wine, but all the Dustmen hmm approvingly.

Shivering in the Dustmen’s homemade PTSD incubator below, Eliot snorts, too quiet to hear over the heavy metal blaring over his head. He pictures Nate’s pained face, listening, (sneering) just like him, hitter and mastermind both snickering at the frat boy interrogating the geek.  
Because Hardison is sweet coffee in the morning and orange soda straight through till next morning, and Sophie? Sophie's really more a tea and lemon shandy girl. She'd honestly prefer wine coolers if they were, well, cooler. 

 

**The Derby Hotel, Lincoln, Nebraska**

It’s muggy and too warm in their hotel room, even with the swamp cooler chugging away in the window. Eliot aches from his “audition” in Rucker’s parking lot, the line where he caught the dumpster’s edge still hot across his shoulders. His bruised stomach aches too, but he knows it’s better not to eat so soon.

Sophie’s plate is a monochrome palette in shades of cream and gold, puddles of smooth cream shine on crisp golden batter and soft ivory potato whipped to peaks. “I can't eat this, it's all the same color.” 

Eliot snorts. He ate in canteens all across Asia and the Middle East. English food was flabby pale, shades of brown and grey, green and orange washed to soft pastel in the long cooking that leached away colors along with the flavor and texture.

Sophie's a sophisticate, though, always knows what she should say even when she doesn't know why.

Sophie said I can't eat this, it's all the same color, and then she shoved a circus bright package of hard beige pork rinds at him, Are you sure you won't try them , they're really quite good. 

When he gets in the ring later, Eliot fights like there’s something inside him trying to get out.

 

**Above McRory’s Bar, Boston**

Bright gilt and painted fruit around the edges of Nate's best dinnerware frame a symphony in gold and ivory; smooth and peppery, crisp and savory, thick and creamy, tender meat dipped in saffron egg , buttery potatoes with just a tang of sour cream underneath.

A midwestern Classic; chicken fried steak with all the fixings. 

He nudges the steak till it lies at just the right angle to a fluffy potato pillow, artfully dented and dusted with fresh chives, ladles out a perfect puddle of steaming white, just enough and not too much, flowing over both of them. Muted harvest colors still peek out from the edges of the bloodwarm plate. 

But _ican'teatthis_ that's not enough. 

Eliot grinds three colors of peppercorns in an arabesque over the gravy. He smiles and steps back. 

_itsallthesamecolor_

The cheerful red and green and white can of Hungarian paprika reproaches him silently. Eliot glares at it and shoves it further back, behind the cooling strawberry pie. Eliot Spencer doesn't take the easy way out. He's better than that. 

Eliot's knife goes snickersnack. A little heap of julienned green beans, brightened with shreds of pickled carrot, falls in the angle between meat and potatoes.  
Eliot’s blunt finger pokes at it to make a nest for a tiny French gerkin sliced into a fan and one spiced crab apple , with the stem on, from the jar he brought Nate last fall.

Bam, he whispers.

 

Eliot deals them out with a flourish, five perfect platefuls on the dark shining wood of the table in Nate’s apartment. Parker squeals and Nate leans back and smiles. 

Hardison says "Dayum, man”, and offers to make him a frilly pink apron. 

Sliding into his own chair, Eliot sneers back and tells him he should get a life, instead of wasting his weekends 

“It ain’t the same if you buy it online, Eliot!“

“making stupid costumes nobody likes." 

“You don’t just get that broke-in, homey look, you know. It’s an art.“

Eliot growls, “I ain’t wearing your arty apron, Hardison.” 

“I like the costumes" Parker pipes up.

Hardison smirks, so Eliot reminds him there's something wrong with Parker, and Sophie tells them both to be nice. 

"This is beautiful, Eliot." she says graciously. "It looks wonderful." 

Her fork presses through creamy gravy, crisp batter and meat beaten soft as white bread. Her delicately painted mouth opens round for a tiny bite, and her eyes widen as she chews.

"Oh,this is delicious." 

“Yes. it really is, Eliot," Nate says politely. Eliot gives him a sharp look. Nate smirks back, pink tongue chasing a little smear of gravy on his upper lip.

"Better than Nana's, even,” Hardison has managed to inhale a third of his steak while Eliot looked away, “and you know how it hurts me to say that."

Sophie ignores the hacker.  
“What is it?" 

Eliot shrugs. "It’s just comfort food, Sophie. Something my mama used to make. Probably the first thing I ever learned to cook, it’s that easy.”

Sophie swirls another bit of crisp golden steak through ivory gravy and takes another blissful bite.

“It’s amazing. “

Eliot grins at her and ducks his head.  
Wouldn’t be polite to laugh. And his mama did teach him manners.


End file.
